Dragon Heimlich?

[Rochelle]

This isn't particularly important, but I thought I'd see if anyone had an answer for me. I was trying to come up with ideas of posts for my Weyrlingmaster, and somehow this baby wonked me between the eyes. You always see new weyrlings pleading with their new dragons to chew so they don't choke, and of course they always start to chew.

Since I've never seen anything suggesting how you would fix this if they actually did start to choke, I think this is because no one can figure out how to stop the dragon from choking once they start.

So... what happens if you do end up with a choking baby dragon, who's probably panicking right along with their rider? (Other than ream the rider later for letting their lifemate do it in the first place...) Reach in and pull out the offending food, hoping they don't bite your arm off? Straddle them and perform some sort of Heimlich maneuver?  :ducken:

Can you even perform a Heimlich on a dragon's physiology?

Or should I assume there is some sort of physiological mechanism or primal instinct that prevents newborn dragons from taking more than they can handle, and that there had never been or will be a weyrling who suffers the fate of loosing their dragon because of a particularly unchewable piece of meat?

Food for thought. Just don't choke on it.  ;D